Video Game crash of 1983

[yotsuya]

I loved watching that bomber contort into all those weird shapes

[popsicle]

I just watched these 'Once Upon Atari' videos at atarimania.  Apologies if this series was already mentioned here or in another thread, but I found them fun to watch.

http://www.atarimania.com/list_videos_atari_publisher-country-type-_6-16-D-_2.html

[vanrose72]

I just watched these 'Once Upon Atari' videos at atarimania.  Apologies if this series was already mentioned here or in another thread, but I found them fun to watch.
http://www.atarimania.com/list_videos_atari_publisher-country-type-_6-16-D-_2.html

I watched those just the other day. A lot of toking went on in that office.

[Well Fed Games]

I watched those just the other day. A lot of toking went on in that office.

[Gray_Area]

Yeah, Combat was pretty boring, and the above-mentioned air fight one was infuriating.

By the way, we did get a class (via our social studies class) in computers. We even had a sheet of terms - like nanosecond, and CPU - to memorize. I actually remembered a lot of those terms, but couldn'tve cared less about computers.

[patm95]

I was 5 in 1983 and had a 2600.  I do remember games all of a sudden getting real cheap.  I remember a local drug store had many copies of 3 different games (I think they were ET, Asteroids, and Missle Command) all were 50 cents a piece.  We got a copy of each one at the time even though I already had those games.  Unfortunately, when I was older our house caught on fire and lost those new games still in the package. 

[Well Fed Games]

Yeah, a lot of people would go back in time and kill Hitler or something. Me, I would go back and buy enough cheap 2600/5200/7800 games that I could open a fresh one every day.

[SavannahLion]

Yeah, a lot of people would go back in time and kill Hitler or something.

Before anyone attempts this, you must read bulletin 1147. Thank you.

[Hoopz]

Good reference.

[vanrose72]

High-larious!

[Well Fed Games]

Yeah, a lot of people would go back in time and kill Hitler or something.

Before anyone attempts this, you must read bulletin 1147. Thank you.

lol, hadn't checked that out before. http://www.abyssapexzine.com/wikihistory/ 

[Gray_Area]

Yeah, a lot of people would go back in time and kill Hitler or something.

Before anyone attempts this, you must read bulletin 1147. Thank you.

Naa. He just needed to be excepted into the Polytechnic.

[yotsuya]

Yeah, a lot of people would go back in time and kill Hitler or something.

Before anyone attempts this, you must read bulletin 1147. Thank you.

lol, hadn't checked that out before. http://www.abyssapexzine.com/wikihistory/ 

That's great!

[vanrose72]

My apologies if others have already posted about the Alamogordo landfill excavation and documentary:

http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/infamous-video-game-landfill-faces-excavation-165828265.html

[ark_ader]

That would be an awesome video game concept.

Indiana Jones + Dig Dug + Greenpeace + Nicolas Cage.

[Gray_Area]

Jesus.....Cage is so bad....I know when a girl says she likes Nicholas Cage that I need to run the other way.

*To be fair, I think Cage is a decent actor - when he has a good script - and when he isn't trying to sound like Jimmy Stewart.

[ark_ader]

That would be an awesome video game concept.

Indiana Jones + Dig Dug + Greenpeace + Nicolas Cage = Uwe Boll.

[orion]

I was raised by a complete computer geek back in the 70s and 80's. My Dad was the defecto Computer science  department at the college where he worked as a college professor. We had an apple II, an Atari 2600 and before that a coleco Telstar arcade. That thing was bad ass!!! At any rate when he wasn't trying to teach me how to program in pascal, he was buying me cool games for the apple II made by this start up company (who's name made him snicker for reasons I didn't understand at the time) called Microsoft. I remember playing castle wolfenstine on the apple II as well as some sort of variant of space wars with these paddle controllers for it. During summer vacation at myrtle beach he would let me run loose at the Pavilion with a pocket full of quarters. I don't remember the 2600 going away. I just remember playing arcade and games on the apple before getting an NES in 85. Did I mention the Telstar arcade???

[lcmgadgets]

I'm 48, so I was there too, during the days of those early consoles & home computers. I never noticed the crash. I was an arcade junkie, solely & completely. What I saw in the way of games on the early consoles & computers convinced me that the arcades were in no danger. There were a couple of cute exceptions--I rather liked my dedicated 'Combat'. But they couldn't compare to the dedicated cab's.

Until a friend let me goof around with his Commordore 64. & even then, I wasn't impressed, although, for the 1st time, I worried a little about the future of the arcades. Computers were getting good!

& then, 1 fateful day, that same friend introduced me to Elite on that same Commodore, & I saw what a computer could do for video gaming...I still dream of that old game. I owned & played all the sequels, & looked for clones since--X3 Reunion came pretty close. Now that I hear David Braben has actually set a release year for Elite 4...

The consoles now are great, except for 1 thing. I will always prefer, by far, a stick & some big round buttons, or a track ball the size of a 5 pin bowling ball, or an honest to goodness flight yoke, or a full size steering wheel, or even (for the right game) a full blown keyboard, over that damn hand held thing u have to control with your thumbs. Did Luke fly the X-Wing down the Death Star's trench with something he carried in his hands, & worked with his thumbs?

But man, I sure miss those arcades. I've said for years (& go ahead, laugh at me all you want, but I mean it) that if I were a multi-millionaire, I'd build a Luna City type arcade, & open it to the public, free of charge (it'd b attached to the hard wood floored rollarena also open for free). Of course, I'd have to hire staff just to maintain those machines, cause I'd b too busy playing 'em...

[Rigby]

There is an excellent explanation of the crash in question at 54:02, here: http://youtu.be/MBT1OK6VAIU?t=54m2s

The entire video is excellent.

[Gray_Area]

There is an excellent explanation of the crash in question at 54:02, here: http://youtu.be/MBT1OK6VAIU?t=54m2s

The entire video is excellent.

Yeah, some good and heavy stuff there. The crash part I knew, but the details of Pitfall development, and as well as the insight into the background of the time through it, was fascinating. Like he, some talented people there, including the audience, seemed to me.

[RandyT]

There is an excellent explanation of the crash in question at 54:02, here:

The entire video is excellent.

The one thing I don't really agree with in his assessment was his take that, paraphrased, "unfair competition from cut-rate titles destroyed Activision's ability to compete".  This kind of smacks of arrogance, in that he believes that Activisions titles were the only ones which were worth the prices they needed to charge in order to cover their operating expenses.  Activisions titles were usually good, but they had a few stinkers as well.    The fact is, many of the companies, like Imagic for example, were putting out some nice games and they all suffered the same fate.  In reality, consumers were able to get games, sometimes as good or better than what Activision was offering, for a better price, so they did.  This became worse as the market started to crumble, and many of those higher quality titles found their way into discount bins as the companies started to fail.

What they were battling was an unsophisticated, ravenous (at it's peak) consumer base, and a hardware platform that was at the end of the development cycle (2600).  The majority of consumers did not pay close attention to hobbyist mags, and saw a "video game as a video game".  This led to many rushed or poor titles making it to market.  Overall consumer confidence slumped, and with so many choices coupled with few ways to allow consumers to be informed, they no longer wanted to chance spending big money on a title.  When parents saw kids not playing the games as much as they used to, they figured the "fad" was over, and didn't upgrade to the newer systems when they became available.

If Activision's titles were so superior to everything else, they would have come out on top and survived the crash.  The reality is, however, there were limitations to what the 2600 could do, and the difference between a great Activision title and a very good $5 bargain bin title, just wasn't large enough to command the difference in price.  It was a house of cards, and Activision was just another card in the pile.

[rpgposer]

I was 17 years old in 1983, a senior in high school.  It was SUCH a rich time for the home computer market that I hardly noticed the crash.  I didn't own any atari console, but somehow (don't ask) ended up with an atari xl series computer.  I had a friend with a 7800 and Food Fight, which was pretty cool.  I did, however, notice the atari shakedown when I was able to afford a brand new XE series computer for next to nothing.
I got out of the hobby for many years, and didn't own another computer until the windows 95/AOL boom.